


straight in a straight line (running back to you)

by effie214



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 05:39:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/effie214/pseuds/effie214
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He inadvertently marries them the Tuesday before her birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	straight in a straight line (running back to you)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from cumberdoom on Tumblr: pretend married. Title from OneRepublic's "All This Time."

He inadvertently marries them the Tuesday before her birthday. She’s not even in attendance; it’s just him and the shop girl, and the words that roll off his tongue as easily as how they’d fallen together when  _finally_  actually arrived. 

The thing that ends up surprising him most is how much the accidental falsehood is actually  _true_. It  _shouldn’t;_ they make a life living on the lies, of course, and it’s been in other people’s words that they’ve found a language of their own. But when he realizes later what he’d said — answering “yes” without hesitation when the cashier had asked if the presents were for his wife — he’s taken aback by diverging thoughts: they  _feel_  married, and yet there’s still a haze of disappointment that they aren’t. 

It’s been a year of wandering until they figured out how lost they were without each other as true north, of trying to determine how to say hello in the aftermath of saying goodbye — first to Amy, then to her as she traded in the rocky shores of Wales for the sunny beaches of California, and finally to him as the Doctor — and for much of that time, they’d lived parallel lives; existences that brushed against each other the way her hair had danced against his cheek as he’d twirled her on a Spanish street, whispering  _almost, not quite._

And then she’d descended the stairs and cupped his cheek, and that touch sparked a thousand supernovas, a hundred thousand second chances that, finally, this time, he felt ready to take full advantage of. 

He had the choice to do anything;  _be_  anything, and he decided to choose her. 

She’d been at his side the final time he was the Doctor, and she was still there in the morning for the first time when he was just Matt. He’d written their story on her skin, tracing truths up and down her spine, surprised to find just how established they already were. He’d long known that she was his favorite thing, the one with whom he is his best self, and yet there was still so much left to learn; so much left to do and explore and experience.

And they’d done that; settled into the best kind of life where they both loved and liked each other. It wasn’t always easy, but the one thing he knows above all else is that it’s worth it, and he wouldn’t change it for the world. 

Or would he?

He can’t shake the gaffe from his mind, despite how minor it is. He wonders why they’ve never talked about where they think this is going, where they  _want_  it to end up. Maybe it has something to do with the time and energy and effort of getting together in the first place. Maybe it has to do with the fact that for all intents and purposes, they  _are_  married; grocery lists are written in two hands and leases and bills herald that old Smith and Gillan magic. She’s his primary contact not only for SAG or Equity but for on a deeper level, for life in general. She is his constant, the center of all things. She may not have hung the moon and the stars in his universe, but she certainly makes them shine brighter, and there’s no one else he can imagine looking at them with.

Until now, it’s been about actions for them instead of the words, but as he makes his way back to their flat, he finds there’s an edge of discontent to that knowledge, and it nips at his heels as he walks. “Wife” rattles around his brain with every step, and he expects it to clang uncomfortably like a muted bell, but instead the word transitions into a picture in his mind’s eye, and suddenly he can hear the pealing fanfare from a chapel, can see her walking toward him, a vision in white with a red hint of fiery promise. He can feel the certainty in the weight of gold as she takes his hand in his, and can see that same hand in a few years’ time, resting on her expanded belly as he feels an impatient kick from within. 

His steps speed up as the certainty wraps around his shoulders like an old friend — holding to him as he’d held on to her in Spain and Cardiff and New York and Croatia and London, back at the beginning before it was one — gravitational force and forward momentum and just the slightest sense of inevitability pulling him ever closer to her, and soon he’s sliding his key into their lock and opening their front door. She’s on the phone and sticks her head out from the small kitchen, waggling her fingers at him in greeting, and he smiles. Just smiles, and breathes her — them — in. He shrugs out of his coat and trainers and joins her as she finishes fixing a cup of tea, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck and breathing out a laugh against her skin when she shivers. He puts his left hand on her shoulder, and when she covers it with her own fingers, he makes his first vow to her: that her ring finger isn’t going to be bare much longer. 


End file.
